Markey Makes Pitch to Harvard Students

Rep. Edward J. Markey, the candidate emerging as frontrunner in the race to replace Secretary of State John F. Kerry in the Senate, visited Harvard on Friday afternoon to make his case to students.

The event took place in the Quincy House Junior Common Room and was attended by about fifty students, many of them members of the Harvard College Democrats, a group that endorsed Markey in early February. Delayed by travel, the longtime congressman from Malden arrived around 4:30pm, and received a loud standing ovation.

When the crowd quieted down, Markey began his pitch. Speaking softly but deliberately, he immediately aligned himself with Senator Elizabeth Warren, the former Harvard Law School Professor who defeated Scott P. Brown, the incumbent, by a wide margin last November. In her victory over Brown, Warren took advantage of tremendous support from younger voters, including the Harvard College Democrats.

“My name is Ed Markey, and I am running for the United States Senate in order to partner with Elizabeth Warren and to be the vote and the voice for Massachusetts and for this next generation,” he said in introduction.

As he outlined his platform in a speech that lasted about twenty-five minutes, Markey touched on his positions on issues ranging from health care to gun control, for the latter commenting that he would support a compromise currently on the Senate floor that would extend background checks to firearm sales conducted at gun shows. Speaking more forcefully for a brief moment, he said—as he has many times throughout his campaign—that his ‘yay’ vote on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) “is actually the best vote of my career.”

“We have to keep that [law] on the books,” he added, cautioning against an ongoing Republican effort to repeal the bill that recently gained steam on the House floor. “[Supporting the PPACA] is part of being a Democrat in 2013. It’s part of what we have to do if we’re going to fulfill our responsibility.”

As time wound down, the congressman changed gears, openly asking those in attendance for their support, and reminding them that, even in deep-blue Massachusetts, Democratic candidates cannot take their opponents lightly.

“Just like in January 2010,” the year of Brown’s unexpected victory, “the whole country will be looking to see what happens. But this time, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to win. This time Democrats are not going to agonize, Democrats are going to organize...And it’s going to be led by young people.”

-Staff Writer Matthew Q. Clarida can be reached at clarida@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @MattClarida